Three leap day babies born in 1984 at Missouri hospital

A trio of babies born 24 years ago defy the odds of being a Leap Day leapling.

Joyce L. Miller

A trio of babies born 24 years ago defy the odds of being a Leap Day leapling.

At last count, there were about 200,000 Leap Day babies living in the United States, four million worldwide.

Leap Day is marked every four years when an extra day is added to keep calendars and seasons in sync. Leap years have to do with the Earth’s orbit around the sun.

If the chances of being born on Leap Day are one in 1,461, what are the odds of three babies being born on the same day at the same hospital?

Slim, but it happened at Lake Regional Hospital in Osage Beach, Mo. According to statistics provided by Lake Regional, hospital staff have delivered 10 babies on the five Leap Year Days that have come and gone since the hospital opened 30 years ago.

On Friday, the hospital could break that tie, but it is going to be tough to beat the odds that were set in 1984 when three leapling babies came into the world, two of them delivered by the same doctor.

On Feb. 29, 1984, the three mothers delivered the babies within hours of one another at Lake Regional Hospital. Dr. Kenneth Ridgeway delivered two of the babies and may have been on hand for the third.

It was such an unusual occurrence that the moms and the babies were gathered together and featured in a photograph that ran in the March 5, 1984, Reveille.

Two of the moms continue to call the lake home. One of the leaplings, now a mom herself, lives in Camdenton, Mo. Another of the trio grew up at the lake, went to college and is living in Colorado. The third couldn’t be tracked down.

Esther Tull says she doesn’t remember her due date, but she knows for certain her daughter, Rachel, was not expected to arrive on Feb. 29.

And yet, she did. With the exception of the few times her birthday has fallen in an actual Leap Year, Tull said the family has celebrated on the weekend that fell closest to Feb. 29. One year, she remembers, Rachel had three birthday parties in one day.

As the middle child of the family, her older brother and younger sister spent plenty of time teasing her about being a Leap Year baby.

When she was younger, her mom said, it aggravated Rachel but not so much now that she has grown up.

“It is fun now,” Rachel Tull said. “I got teased a bunch from my sister and brother when I was little. My dad always told me wait until you are older and you will love it. Now I really enjoy it. It’s kind of special.”

Now that she is a mom to a busy 2-year-old, Rachel Tull says she won’t be having any huge celebrations.

“Now that I have a kid, I don’t plan on celebrating. It depends on if we can find a baby sitter,” she said.

Being born in the same hospital as two other Leap Day babies meant they grew up in the same class and went to school together.

“I used to tease Tyler and called him my twin, but I haven’t seen him since high school,” Rachel Tull said.

Tyler would be Tyler McNally, who, up until he left for college, lived in Osage Beach. To celebrate his birthday, he is spending the weekend in Steamboat Springs, Colo., skiing with friends.

He was three weeks late and weighed in at 9 pounds 15 ounces. A week before he was born, the doctor had tried to induce labor but he simply refused to come out.

His mom, Patty McNally of Osage Beach, says it was a prelude of things to come later in life.

“It fit his personality, she said. “He has always been drawn to the out-of-the-ordinary.”

Tyler McNally is a member of the Denver Gales hurling team, an Irish sport he describes as a mixture of soccer, lacrosse, field hockey and rugby without the protective pads.

He is also known to wander a bit. He recently spent 100 days in Ireland, exploring his Irish roots.

As the youngest of four boys, Tyler McNally has been looked upon as the baby of the McNally clan, so birthdays were always special. But combined with the unique circumstances surrounding Leap Day, his seemed to stretch from the last week of February all the way into March, according to his mom.

On that same day in Columbia, Mo., Adam Enboden was born. His family moved to the lake area when he was 24 months old and ended up at the same school, going to class with Rachel Tull and Tyler McNally.

Although he was not the third baby of the original trio from Lake Regional, he was included in the camaraderie of sharing the same birthday. All three remembered each other and made certain everyone else knew there were two others who shared the same birthday.

“When I was younger, I used to celebrate it on the 28th. I used to not like it very much when I had a real birthday because it was a day later,” Enboden said. “I still celebrate it on the 28th.”

It doesn’t make much difference now, he said. All the big birthdays are over, so the excitement just isn’t there.

40 divided by four

Turning 40 is no big deal for Angie Bittle of Rocky Mount. If she wants, she can consider it her 10th birthday. She was born in 1968 in Jefferson City, Mo., and has had few opportunities to celebrate on the actual day.

Most years, she and her family celebrate on the weekend that would fall closest to her actual birthday if it were a Leap Year. It’s a matter of when everyone can get together, she said.

She may have recently discovered an advantage to being a leapling.

“I went to the license bureau the other day and it kicked my license out a year later than everyone else’s,” Bittle said. “The lady that took my picture didn’t know why it did that, but we thought maybe it was because of my birthday. I said there was something good that came out of having your birthday on leap year!”

11 anniversaries later, they’re still in love – and that’s no joke

Leap Day is also known as Sadie Hawkins Day or turnabout day. Years ago, Sadie Hawkins Day was celebrated by girls asking boys out.

Larry and Connie Hopingarner got married on Leap Day 44 years ago in the now famous Little Church of the West in Las Vegas, Nev.

Although he had to do all the asking when it came to getting married, Connie was the one who initiated their first date.

They didn’t give it much thought that they would be exchanging vows on Leap Day. Now they say they probably wouldn’t do it again. If they had it all to do over again, they would have moved it up a few weeks and chosen Valentine’s Day. It’s more romantic, they say.

Connie and Larry met each other on a blind double date. Living in Las Vegas at the time, the couple went on their first date and had a good time, but didn’t speak again for about a month.

That is when Connie called him up and asked if he wanted to go out for a soda. The real version is much different than what Larry likes to tell people.

“I tell everyone she was dancing in the chorus line in Vegas, but she wasn’t,” Larry said, joking.

“It used to embarrass me, but it doesn’t any longer,” Connie said.

In fact, it is Larry’s sense of humor that Connie attributes to their lasting marriage.

When they decided to get married in 1964, the couple said it was by coincidence that it happened on Leap Day.

“I had to work until the end of the month and I was handy that way,”
Connie said.

Connie and Larry decided to tie the knot before moving back to their home state of Kansas. They moved to the lake area in 1994.

To mark their 44th anniversary, Connie and Larry Hoopingarner said it will be low key, dinner with friends and family. For them, it is just another day.

“Our celebrations have gotten less and less every year. Now it is going out to eat someplace,” Larry said. “We are not big into the gifts on the anniversary and birthdays, not for us.

“For the kids, it is a different story. If you make it an anniversary all year long, you get along a lot better. We’ll probably exchange a kind word. Sometimes that means a lot.”

Contact this reporter at joycem@lakesunleader.com

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